


live inside of a moment

by jemmasimmmons



Series: are we out of the woods yet? [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Gen, Nightmares, background and discussed fitzsimmons, potential triggers for, scar discussion, vomit/retching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-11 19:13:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4448828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jemmasimmmons/pseuds/jemmasimmmons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"We all have scars. Some are ones that other people can see, some are ones only you can. Some disappear in their own time. Some need a little bit of help fading. But, some, they don't go away. They stay, and that's okay, but only if you're not ashamed of them. If you let those scars become a part of you then they can make you stronger."</p>
<p>The second time Melinda May takes her leave from SHIELD, she takes Skye and Jemma with her.</p>
<p>It is most definitely not a road-trip.</p>
            </blockquote>





	live inside of a moment

**Author's Note:**

> So this was quite new for me! I'v never written a solely platonic fic before but I really enjoyed doing it. This got far longer than what I was aiming for and I did consider splitting it into chapters but it just didn't happen. Also, I'm not very experienced in writing in May and Skye's voices, so apologies if they feel a bit ooc to those of you who are!
> 
> As with the first part in this series (which has become more Jemma centric that I had first planned), the exacts of how Jemma got out of the Kree rock is not explicit, but I am hoping to investigate that more in my next piece - which does mean going back in chronology. In addition to this, I started writing before the whole Skye/Daisy thing got called into question, so for the purpose of this universe she's still Skye.
> 
> Within this fic, there is a nod towards amandajoyce's fantastic Conversation Hearts, which is one of my favourite fics ever and I cannot reccomend enough to you. Seriously. Exit out of this fic right now and go read it. Even if you have read it before. Go read it again. (I do. Daily.) I'll see if you can spot it, but just to say the idea does not belong to me!
> 
> Another huge thank you has to go to my best friend Josie who was so patient with me while I was writing this and very kindly fixed all my atrocious spelling and grammar mistakes for me. She is the best and I love her so much. Another thank you also has to go to Cherie, who I don't think will ever see this, but I have to say thank you to her as well for convincing me that I should post this instead of keeping it to myself. 
> 
> The title comes from Ingrid Michealson's song 'Afterlife'. I hope you enjoy this!

'You're mad at me for calling.'

With the way that Skye said it, May knew that this was not a question. It was an observation.

She straightened up and slid a pair of sunglasses out of her locker to put back into her duffle bag before she replied.

'Quite frankly, Skye, I would have been more mad if you _hadn't_ called me.'

Hovering in the doorway of the locker room, Skye rubbed at her shoulder anxiously as she watched her supervising officer.

'It's just that I didn't know what to do,' she blurted out after a moment's silence. 'None of us did. Everyone just looked so lost, and I just felt so helpless. I didn't know what to do,' she repeated. 'So I called you...because I knew that you'd know. That you'd know what to do, I mean.'

May paused, and looked up at the younger agent. Skye's eyes were wide and her fingernails were playing with the fabric of her shirt as she clutched at it.

'It wasn't me who got Simmons out of the rock, Skye,' May said quietly. 'That was you, and Fitz, and Simmons herself. Not me.'

Skye's shrug in response was utterly devoid of modesty, false or otherwise. 'Yeah, well, we didn't do it when you weren't here, did we?'

May wasn't sure what she could say in response to that so instead she chose to continue packing her bag. After a minute or so, Skye came closer into the room and sat down cross-legged on the bench to watch her.

'Have you seen her yet today?' May asked.

'Who, Simmons? Yeah, I just came from her room. She's better today, I think. Still not okay, but better than she was.'

May turned her head sharply. 'You just left her? Was she alone?'

'No! God, no.' Skye gave a small shake of her head. 'Fitz was just going in as I left. I think that they were...' May watched as the tension on Skye's face eased and the corners of her mouth lifted into a smile, 'going to talk.'

_Good_ , May thought. _They need that_.

'And Mack was there too. Not, like, _with_ them or anything, but he's sitting in the med bay anyway. Just in case.'

May nodded, satisfied, and turned back to her bag.

None of them were sure what 'just in case' even meant anymore, but it was good to know that they were prepared for it.

Whatever it turned out to be.

'Are you leaving again?' Skye asked. May was surprised to feel her chest tighten at sound of the dull tone in her voice.

'I still have three days of leave left,' she replied. 'And I might as well make use of them. Maybe I'll even manage to get to a beach this time.'

'Are you going to go with Andrew again?'

May hesitated, and for a moment flashed back to that night just a week before when she had climbed out of a hotel bedroom window, her ex-husband's car keys in her hand, and driven away from him into the night, with her conversation with a frantic Skye still drumming through her head.

_Maybe in another lifetime_.

'I think this time I'll go on my own,' she said lightly.

'Oh.'

On the bench, Skye uncrossed and then recrossed her legs. May finished packing her bag and zipped it up, shuting her locker and replacing the padlock.

'May?'

'Hmm?'

'This time, when you go...can I come too?'

 

 

There were takeaway cartons strewn all over Jemma's bed, and as Skye sat down she had to peel a chow mein noodle off the blanket.

'So, how did it go?'

She had spent most of that morning helping her friend organise dinner for her and Fitz, her final duty having been to deliver the guest of honour to Jemma's room, which she had done before seeking May out. Given the empty food cartons and the discarded cups of beer in the room, along with the dazed look of happiness she had seen on Fitz's face when they had passed in the corridor, Skye was fairly certain that her efforts had been successful for Jemma. But she wanted confirmation from the source herself.

'Good!' There was a colour to Jemma's cheeks that had not been there in a very long time. 'It was very good, actually.'

In her lap, she was stroking the petals of the pink flower that had been tucked behind her ear. Skye wondered how it had fallen out.

She reached out to squeeze Jemma's hand. 'I'm happy for you,' she said, meaning it with every fiber of her being. 'Seriously, Jemma. I'm really, really happy for both of you.'

A broad grin spread across her friend's face and she bit her bottom lip. 'Yeah,' Jemma said shyly. 'Yeah, me too.'

Skye couldn't help but return the grin as she gave Jemma's hand another squeeze. She wasn't just happy; she was genuinely ecstatic that her two friends had finally managed to resolve enough of their issues to get to this point. She knew that they were both a long way off from being okay again - they all were - but this was a start. And if a start could make Jemma look this elated, Skye couldn't begin to imagine how happy she would be once things got even further.

'So, is May leaving then?' Jemma asked and Skye held back a wince at how deflated her friend suddenly sounded. Though she would never have admitted it aloud to her, Jemma had drawn a lot of comfort in the older woman's presence over the last few days and Skye knew that the idea of May leaving was making her friend anxious again.

'I saw her packing, but I don't know if she's actually going to go yet,' Skye lied, lifting herself so she was further onto the bed.

(Not only did she know that May was going, but she also knew that she was going _with_ her.)

Jemma sank back against the pillows behind her head and Skye noticed, not for the first time in the past two days, how pale she looked under the fading pink of her flushed cheeks. It was not the kind of pale you would generally expect that a girl who had spent ten days inside of a rock would be (not that you would generally be expect her to have been in a rock _anyway_ ). It was the kind of pale that made Skye wonder if there had been something wrong even before that, and how no one had noticed.

'When are they letting you out of here?' she asked.

Jemma looked a little taken back at the quick change of subject but shrugged. 'Tomorrow, I think. Fitz wants to run one more blood test first. I've taken the samples already, for him to run the test in the morning.'

'Okay, so how long will that be in, like, hours?'

In the back of her mind, Skye could feel the piece of an idea slot into place.

'Oh gosh, Skye, I don't know. Fifteen, maybe?'

 

 

'Hey, May?'

'Hmm?'

'How would it be if we delayed our departure for another...' A pause, as she checked her watch and counted the minutes. '...fifteen hours and twenty six minutes?'

 

 

Much to Skye's surprise, when it came to convincing her team mates of the value of her idea, it was Coulson who was hardest to pursuade.

Jemma was fairly easy; once her initial apprehension over leaving the base so soon after coming back had worn off, she even seemed excited by the idea of going with them.

Fitz was a little harder to convince, but then again, Skye could easily understand why. He had only just managed to get Jemma back in one piece – he wasn't exactly going to be thrilled at letting her go again so soon. But even he had to admit that it would be healthy for her to leave the base for a time and, once he saw how enthused Jemma was by it, he reluctantly agreed that it was a good idea for her to go.

Coulson, on the other hand, was far more cynical when it came to agreeing to letting two more of his agents go on leave.

'It's not a good idea,' he said, leaning against the edge of his desk with his one hand.

'No, it's not, it's a _great_ idea!' Skye insisted.

'Skye, think of what could go wrong!'

'Literally nothing could go wrong! We'd be on holiday. With _May_.'

Their director reluctantly looked up to his second in command, standing stoically off to the side with her hands behind her back. 'And you're okay with this?'

May met Skye's face and held her gaze for a moment before looking back to Coulson with a shrug. 'Like Skye said, they'd be with me.'

It wasn't exactly an answer to his question, and Coulson rolled his eyes up to the ceiling and uttered a deep sigh.

But when he dug his hand into his pocket for the keys to the SUV and muttered, 'three days' weakly, Skye knew she had been victorious.

Half an hour later, she and May were throwing their bags into the back of the car. Skye turned to watch as Jemma and Fitz walked through the door to the garage together. Jemma was pulling a hand luggage sized suitcase after her, which Fitz took from her hand and packed into the SUV once they were close enough.

May turned away pointedly then, as did Hunter, Mack and Bobbi who had gathered in the garage to say goodbye. Skye knew that she probably should too, but when Jemma leant up on her tip toes to wrap her arms around Fitz's neck, she couldn't quite bring herself to.

Fitz blinked rapidly in surprise at the gesture and, for a brief second, allowed his nose to duck down into her shoulder. But, when he drew abruptly away, Skye could see by the disappointment on Jemma's face that she had wished the hug had lasted for longer.

May seemed to have noticed this part as well, because at that point she strode over and plucked the SUV keys from Skye's hand.

'I'm driving,' she announced. 'Simmons, do you want to sit up front?'

Jemma's eyes noticably lit up and she nodded, before giving Fitz one last hesitant smile and moving away from him to the passenger door.

As May made her way around to the driver's side, Skye opened the back door of the SUV, glancing back at Fitz before she got in.

He raised his eyebrows at her in a silent plea: _look after her?_

Skye rolled her eyes and gave an almost undistinguishable nod of the head: _obviously_.

Fitz gave her a grateful smile and stepped back from the car to stand next to Bobbi, who gave him a reassuring pat from her wheelchair. He'd be looked after too, Skye realised, climbing into the backseat. They'd all be looking out for each other now.

'Are we ready to go?' May asked.

'Yep!' Skye chirped back.

In front of them, Mack opened the doors of the garage and the sunlight that greeted them through the crack was almost blinding.

'Seat belt, Skye,' Jemma said mildly, as May began to roll the SUV out of the doors. 'You know, the wearing of seat belts is said to reduce the risk of death in motor accidents by forty five percent, and cut the risk of serious injury by fifty...'

Skye saw May crack a tiny smile in the rearview mirror, and she leant across to fasten her belt. 'Good to have you back, Simmons.'

The doors to the base had fully slid back by this point and as May drove the car out into daylight, Skye closed her eyes and allowed the sun to warm her face through the blackout windows.

She didn't think anything had ever felt so good before.

 

 

'Skye, what is that?'

'It's just a CD, May.'

'It might well be, but at the moment it is blocking my mirrors and creating a driving hazard.'

They had been on the road for half an hour, and already May was starting to question her sanity in allowing this to happen.

Skye, who had unfastened her seatbelt by this time and was leaning with both elbows on the front seats, rolled her eyes.

'It's a road trip CD,' she explained. 'You know, it's got the kind of songs you want to play when you're on a road trip.'

'This is not a road trip.'

'Well,' Jemma put in helpfully. 'It is a trip. And we are on a road. So I suppose it is, actually.'

'I made it for myself,' Skye continued, as if the two other women hadn't spoken. 'To play when I used to take long trips in my van. Obviously, I was by myself those times so I never knew if they counted as road trips or not, but this definitely does...'

'This is not a road trip,' May insisted again.

But Skye tapped the CD against Jemma's shoulder anyway, and the other girl took it with an appreciative hum to slide it into the car's audio system.

May might have protested again how this trip was most definitely not a road trip again as the riff of the first track filled the SUV. She _might_ have done, had Skye not begun to sing the words softly while tapping her fingers in time against the window, and Jemma not leant back in her seat, humming happily under her breath.

She might have also have reminded them when the CD reached the last song and Jemma pressed the replay button had Skye not been right.

They _were_ the kind of songs you wanted to play when you were on a road trip.

 

 

The grass that she was scuffing underneath her feet was very green and very long, and Jemma found herself with the strangest urge to slip her shoes off and experience it prickling underneath her bare feet.

She tried to remember how long it must have been since she had done something like that – at least two years, if not more. It might feel different now, she realised. So much else had changed, so much else was different. _She_ was different.

When everything else around her had changed, why should the grass have stayed the same?

A cold twist of panic squeezed at her stomach, a sensation she was all too familiar with, and Jemma shut her eyes quickly and tilted her face up to the sun, her heart thumping loud against her ribcage. She opened her mouth to suck in a breath, and then exhaled out slowly through her nose, just like May had taught her.

As the panic began to subside, Jemma opened her eyes to take in her surroundings and ground herself again. There was the green of the grass, the blue of the sky, the picnic benches that families were eating on. There was the grass, the sky and people around her.

They were still there. And so was she.

Down by her sides, her tightly clenched fists began to unfurl.

'Jemma!'

At the sound of her friend's voice, Jemma turned to find Skye. She was hurrying down the slope towards her, with May following closely behind. The two of them were holding brown paper bags from the takeaway café over the hill.

They had been driving for about four hours to the soundtrack of the road trip CD before the music was harmonised with loud grumbles from Skye's stomach, protesting about it's lack of lunch. May had rolled her eyes, but then pulled over at the next gas station, which was attached to a greasyspoon café, so that the three of them could get some food. Jemma wasn't exactly hungry, but she wasn't about to tell May and Skye that either.

'What did you get?' she asked, dropping down to her knees on the grass once the other two were close enough.

Skye flopped down beside her and ripped open her paper bag. 'Burgers,' she announced, pulling out a fist sized sandwich wrapped in sticky cellopane. 'And fries, and chicken nuggets, and I think May's got some soda somewhere...'

Jemma couldn't help feeling her stomach turn unplesantly at the smell as Skye bit hungrily into her lunch next to her.

May had sat down cross-legged next to Skye and was neatly unwrapping her own food, placing them on unfolded napkins in front of her. She glanced up to meet Jemma's eye and pushed a burger over the grass towards her.

'That's yours, Simmons.'

Jemma looked down at the burger in front of her. It had sesame seeds ontop and when she lifted the top of the bun, a round brown patty of meat with a square slab of orange cheese stared back at her.

'I don't suppose there was anything you could have got me that was, um, _green_ , by any chance, was there?'

Skye snorted into her burger. 'Jemma, that was quite possibly the greasest, cheapest, most disgusting fast food café in the whole of the US. I don't think the word 'green' exists in their vocabulary, unless it's describing a pickle.' She lifted the top off her own bun. 'Oh, wait, never mind. Even their pickles are brown.'

(May wrinkled her nose up at that too, Jemma noticed.)

'And besides,' Skye continued. 'You need it. Your blood sugar levels came up low again on your last test and I am under doctor's orders to make sure you raise it.'

Jemma gave a quiet scoff. 'What doctor? We don't have a doctor.'

_And if we did, it would be_ me _, wouldn't it?_

'You know, you're not the only person on the base with a doctorate,' May reminded her and Jemma felt her cheeks colour at the implication that came with those words.

'Yeah, and Doctor Fitzy gave me explicit instructions to make sure you were eating _something_ , at least. Even if it's that.' Skye nodded towards the burger. 'So eat it.'

'You can't call him that,' Jemma protested weakly, feeling her face grow even hotter.

'Why not? _You_ do.'

'Oh...'

Jemma groaned and lifted the burger to her lips to take a bite. Even behind her enormous mass of food, she could see both of her friends put down their own food and watch her, just in time to see the look of pure, snobbish disgust on her face as she swallowed her first bite.

'Urgh.'

 

 

May had had every intention of reaching a beach.

She had packed for it, after all; the red bikini still tucked away in an inside pocket of her bag, waiting to be used.

Jemma seemed perfectly content to be taken anywhere the older agent wanted to go, but Skye hadn't been as enthused as May had expected she might be. In fact, given Skye's downturned mouth when she told them their intended destination, she would almost have thought she didn't want to go. But Melinda May was on her first holiday for several years, and she wanted the beach. So that was where she was heading.

Or, at least, that _had_ been where she was heading.

But by the time they had been on the road for twelve hours, and she had Jemma fast asleep on the backseat and Skye yawning next to her, May could see her dreams of sand and sea slowly trickling away from her.

They were driving through a thick coniferous forest just as twilight began to set in, and May could see the shadows on the road grow long fingers that seemed to reach through the air to grab at the car. On the horizon, she could see the last threads of sunlight weave their way through the branches of the trees as if they meant to embroider the ground.

It was only when Jemma woke up, her eyes bleary with sleep, and looked out of the window with an awed 'oh', that Skye looked pleadingly over at her S.O. May looked back at her, and then to Jemma's wide eyes reflecting back at her in the rear view mirror, and she sighed.

When the next sign came up advertising a motel campground, May turned the indicator on.

The woman behind the front desk in reception handed them two keys to twin log cabins without tearing her eyes away from her fashion magazine. May took them with a silent eye roll, and deliberately pocketed one before handing the second one to Jemma. The gesture was pointed enough that the two younger agents understood without having to be told further: when it came to sleeping arrangements, May had decided for them.

And, as May watched Skye haul Jemma's case out of the back of the SUV for her, and Jemma hold the door of their cabin open for Skye to walk in first, she realised that it was probably for the best anyway.

 

 

'And you're sure you're alright with this?'

Jemma was peering in concern at her over the top of the double bed, the only bed in their cabin, and the bed that they were going to have to share for the three nights they were staying there. The cabin itself was fairly basic – a kitchenette attached to the front room, which had a round table and a couch in, and then the only bedroom, complete with a tiny bathroom and shower. It wasn't exactly luxurious, but it would serve its purpose of a place to sleep, or as best it could with only the one bed.

Skye looked up at her friend and gave a reassuring nod. 'Yeah, totally.' Behind the bed, she dug into her bag to find a suitable shirt for sleeping in before grinning back at Jemma. 'Besides, it's not like we haven't shared a bed before, is it?'

But even as she said it, Skye remembered the context of the last time she and Jemma had slept in the same bed and she instantly wished she could have kept her mouth shut. It had been at the motel in LA, just after everything had started. They had shared the room with May, who had taken one of the beds as her own, leaving the other two girls to share again. Jemma kicked in her sleep, Skye remembered.

As she saw Jemma's eyes drop down to her shoes, she realised how much had changed since that night, how much they had lost and how much more they had discovered about themselves and what they were capable of.

She missed that motel, Skye realised. However miserable she might have felt when she was there, she missed it, and the very definitely sense of _family_ she had felt with the people she had been with.

When she looked back up at Jemma, the older girl was looking at her with a soft concern that almost brought tears to Skye's eyes.

'Why don't you shower first?' Jemma suggested kindly and Skye nodded.

Gratefully, she hauled herself off the floor and shuffled across the room to the bathroom.

She pretended not to notice the way Jemma was reaching for the small bottle of sleeping pills in her pocket, even before she had shut the bathroom door behind her.

 

 

It had just passed five in the morning when Jemma woke up, covered in a layer of cold sweat and with a scream on her lips that she had to muffle quickly with her hand, lest it woke Skye too.

The bedroom they were sharing was still swathed in darkness thanks to the thick checkered curtains, but there was a thin strip of light where they did not quite cover the whole window, which let Jemma know that it was morning. Still early, but late enough for it to not be worth her going back to sleep.

She sighed and sat up, rubbing her eyes as if by scrubbing hard enough she could wash away the images of her dreams, erase them from her memory. Unfortunately, she had no such luck.

Next to her on the bed, Skye was still sleeping. She had thrown her arms and legs out to the side like a starfish in her sleep and even in the half-dark of the room Jemma could see the frownlines on her forehead.

Carefully, she slipped out of the bed, tucking the covers back around Skye as she went, and grabbed a jumper from her suitcase before padding quietly out of the door to their cabin and shutting it behind her.

Outside, the grass beneath her feet felt damp and cold with morning dew; _just the same_ , Jemma thought with a smile. _Just the same as it always had_. The thought was wonderfully comforting, and she continued stepping forward.

The sun was barely beginning to poke through the thick branches of the conifer trees, and the sky was still streaked with the orange and pink light of the sunrise as she made her way across the grass of the campsite, appreciating the cool breeze over her bare arms and the smell of the fir trees prickling her nose.

The world felt quiet, and still and very much real. And that things were real was the one thing Jemma needed to be sure of right now.

She had just passed May's cabin when a flicker of movement from behind it made her stop. From the corner of her eye, Jemma saw a lithe figure dressed in black move her arms in slow circles around her body, her eyes closed and a look of pure serenity on her face.

Curiously, she stepped forward, until she was close enough to watch May as she moved through her morning tai chi routine. The older woman's movements were graceful and fluid and, just by watching her, Jemma could feel her heartrate slow and her body relax.

After about five minutes, May opened her eyes but didn't look even a bit surprised to see her standing next to her. Jemma wondered whether she had known all along.

'You're up early.'

'I...'

For a moment, she considered telling May about the trouble she was having sleeping, or about the dreams that refused to let her go, or even how the little bottle of pills she had brought along to help her sleep was already running out.

'Yes. I suppose I am.'

May regarded her for a minute, and then spoke again. 'Do you want to try?'

Jemma hesitated then, remembering the sensation of peace she had felt watching May do it, nodded. 'Yes. Please.'

By the time the sun had risen high enough to peek over the top of the trees, and May had patiently covered the basic tai chi movements with her, Jemma could almost feel the last, haunting images from her nightmares slowly slipping away.

It was only when she heard the door to her and Skye's cabin open and close with a frantic bang that she guiltily remembered she had left her sleeping bunkmate behind with an empty bed.

Skye rounded the corner of May's cabin just a few seconds later, her eyes wide and panicked.

'Oh, thank God,' she sighed as she caught sight of the two other agents. 'You're here. I woke up and you were gone, and I...'

The way she didn't even bother to conceal the relief on her face made something inside Jemma twist in guilt, and she felt a sudden rush of affection towards her friend that made her arms itch to reach out and hug her.

'She's here,' May said, touching Jemma lightly on the arm as she addressed Skye. 'And I don't think Simmons is planning on going anywhere without us anytime soon.'

'Absolutely not,' Jemma agreed when May met her eyes. She gave Skye a small smile, sensing that the other girl needed more reassurance, and Skye smiled back, her shoulders visibly sagging in relief.

'Okay.' She nodded and then her smile broadened to a grin. 'Okay, cool. So, what's the plan for today?'

Jemma glanced back to May and gave her a slight raise of her eyebrow. May looked back at her, before her mouth twisted up into a wry smile.

'I might have a few ideas.'

 

 

Melinda May had wanted a beach.

And, even though it had taken her an extra three hours of driving in the SUV, with Jemma and Skye intensely studying an ancient map of the area from their cabin in the back seat, she had gotten what she wanted eventually.

It didn't have the golden sands and salty air of her dreams, but buried in the very heart of the US, a lakeside beach down a low cliff from the road was probably as close as she was going to get.

But that was fine. In this job, compromises were all she could afford.

('Are you sure this is legal?' Jemma had enquired once May had parked up on the roadside, pushing her sunglasses up to perch ontop of her head as she frowned at their surroundings. Behind her, Skye had tumbled out of the SUV and thrown her a pointed look.

'Jemma, when was the last time we did anything legal?'

'...fair point.')

The spot May had chosen was on the edge of a crystal blue lake, settled in the heart of a national park. There was a narrow stretch of cobbles and brown sand just over a low electric fence next to to the road, where the water lapped against the shore, and it was here that May had decided they would set up camp for the day.

('I mean,' Skye had added as May tossed their bags over the fence and Jemma worked with a screwdriver and a pair of kirby grips to disable the electricity temporarily for them to cross, 'we're still fugatives from the law right? What's one little account of breaking and entering in addition to _that_?')

The strip of beach was just wide enough for May to roll out her towel to recline on without the water touching her toes and she lay back carefully, keeping her head propped up against a larger stone so she could keep an eye on her agents.

Skye had sat down next to her on her own towel and was flipping through a People magazine she had found in the cabin, nibbling restlessly on a punnet of grapes (Jemma had insisted they stop at a minimart on the way for some fruit, 'if you will insist on eating junk for the rest of the trip'). A pink and white stripy towel was laid out on the other side of Skye, but the slight figure who should have been occupying it was walking up and down the beach barefoot instead.

May pushed herself up onto her elbows to watch Jemma on her slow and careful walk; occasionally, she would bend down to pick up a stone, smoothing it over in her palm. Sometimes, she would slip it into her pocket. Others, she would let it slide through her fingers to fall back to the beach.

Despite the thick canopy of trees surrounding them, the sun was still high enough in the sky that it couldn't provide any shade for their strip of beach and the longer she was sitting still, the hotter May began to find the sun. Eventually, she found herself shrugging off her trousers and t-shirt, to reveal the red bikini she had put on before they had left.

The bikini had been an item she had bought on a whim a few years back – when she had worked in admin, she had taken to swimming daily before her shifts and she had purchased the bikini in lieu of her usual black one piece suits one particuarly sunny day. After that, though, she had never worn it, and it had only joined her on the Bus and then the Playground because it had been in a forgotten side pocket of her bag. It had only been this morning that she had cut the tags off the fabric.

May could feel Skye's eyes following her as she peeled off her layers of clothing and, as she resettled herself on her towel, she felt Skye rub at the fabric at her own t-shirt absently without removing it.

Several meters away from them, May could see Jemma standing just inches away from the water's edge. She watched, as the girl continued to stare intently at the lake in front of her, jerking back suddenly as the water came up to lap at her toes.

'Doesn't it bother you?' Skye asked suddenly.

May glanced over at her in surprise and tried to figure out what she meant.

Didn't _what_ bother her? The fact that they were here while the rest of their team were still at the base? The fact that Jemma Simmons was wandering up and down a stony beach with her jeans rolled up to her ankles, when just a week ago she had been practically given up for dead? Or the fact that they had just broken into a national nature reserve?

There were many things, May thought, that might be bothering her at this point in time. What was more difficult was figuring out which one Skye was refering to.

'Doesn't what bother me?'

'Your scars.' Skye bit her lip before gesturing vaguely towards her S.O. 'They don't...bother you?'

May stared back at her, a little afronted at the blunt handling of the question, but then for a fleeting moment, she saw a crack in Skye's confident exterior, showing her the vulnerability of the young girl underneath and she softened. Sometimes, despite everything, she forgot how young these two girls really were.

Sitting up, she lifted up her arm to trace a finger length scar down the side of her ribcage.

'See this one?'

Skye's eyes narrowed, and then she nodded.

'I got this one on my first field assignment, years ago when a team of us were undercover in a nightclub in Cuba. We were after a rare piece of space element that a terrorist organisation there were looking to weaponise. I was fresh out of the Operations Academy, too cocky for my own good, and I didn't put on a protection vest under my dress. A guy got me with a knife, about half an inch deep.'

May heard Skye suck in a breath and waited for a moment before pointing to another scar, the size of her thumbnail, tucked inside her collarbone.

'This one, I got from the time we stormed the Hub.' She glanced up to see Skye's face cloud over slightly. 'Hand's men started firing at us through the windows and I got hit. Coulson pulled me under the bench and shielded me until they'd stopped.' May paused and made herself take a few controlled breaths before adding quietly: 'It's fading. Slowly, but I think it might be gone soon.'

Subconciously maybe, Skye's hand had gone up to her hip and she was rubbing a spot of skin in circles with her fingers as she listened, her eyes trained stubbornly on the ground. May wondered whether she was lost in her own memories of that day at the Hub.

But when she cleared her throat and lifted her leg up, Skye's head jerked up as well.

'I got this one,' May let her hand drift above a scar on her calf, maybe the width of her palm and still scorching red after almost eight years, 'in Bahrain.'

That single word still held so much power in May's mind, and she could tell by the way Skye shifted uncomfortably on her towel that she was thinking of it too. She didn't elaborate on that story. She didn't need to.

Down the beach from them, Jemma had inched back to the water's edge.

'We all have scars, Skye,' May said softly. 'Some are ones that other people can see, some are ones only you can. Some disappear in their own time. Some need a little bit of help fading. But, some, they don't go away. They stay, and that's okay, but only if you're not ashamed of them. If you let those scars become a part of you then they can make you stronger. And that's good, because it means that you're growing.'

Skye was staring out at the water, her eyes distant.

'Would you go back?' she murmured. 'If you could go back and change the past and make it so that those scars had never happened...would you do it?'

May hesitated and thought for a moment. She considered each of the incidents she had told Skye about in turn: how each of them had happened, what had happened because of them, and how she felt about them now.

'No,' she said eventually. 'No, I wouldn't. Because if I took these scars away then I wouldn't be where I am now. I wouldn't be _who_ I am now.'

'And you like where you are? You like _who_ you are?'

May removed her sunglasses and regarded the girl in front of her. 'Yes. Yes, I do.'

_And you should too_.

'Our scars are memories, Skye, memories of pain. The way I see it, you can cover them up and pretend they never happened. But, if you do that then they come to define you. Or you can embrace them, and let them become memories of how you overcame that pain instead of just reminding you of it. How you choose to look at your scars isn't something I can tell you how to do, Skye. That's something you have to do for yourself.'

May finished, letting her last sentences settle into the air and watched Skye's face as she registered them. Having said all she needed to say, she reclined again, replacing her sunglasses and propping her arms behind her head. Skye sat next to her, still bolt upright and staring out at the water.

A movement down the other end of the beach caught May's eye and both she and Skye turned their heads in unison to watch as Jemma, her fists clenched tightly together, took a tentative step forward to place both her feet in the water. Almost immediately, she cried out.

'Bloody _hell_ , it's cold!'

Skye's face instantly softened as she watched her and she instantly pushed herself up onto her feet to pad down to the water's edge too. Half way there, though, she stopped and May watched as, hesitantly, Skye lifted up her arms to remove her t-shirt, tugging it over her head and letting it drop back down onto the towel. Then, dressed only in her own bikini, she made her way down to join Jemma.

Left behind with the towels, May smiled.

 

 

A low, gutteral cry woke Skye up from her hazy sleep, filled with visions of dasies and the ground shaking beneath her feet, with a start.

Still half-asleep, she barely even registered the sudden dip in the mattress as another body slid off the bed until she heard the bathroom door lock and a horrible retching noise coming from inside. It was only then that she remembered she hadn't been sleeping alone and that the space on the bed beside her was empty.

_Oh no_.

'Jemma!'

Skye scrambled out of the covers and vaulted over the bed to the bathroom; she tried the door handle, even though she had heard it lock, and felt her own stomach twist when she couldn't open it. She banged her palm against the door.

'Jemma, are you okay in there?'

The retching from behind the door had stopped, only to be replaced by ragged breathing that to Skye's ears sounded even worse. A sudden memory from the day Jemma had come out of the Kree rock crept forward to the front of her mind, and Skye felt a horrified shiver run up her spine. She knocked on the door again with a renewed urgency.

'Jemma, can you open the door for me, please?'

There was still no reply but the sound of her friend's gulping breaths, and Skye could feel her own panic rising.

'Jemma, if you can't open this door for me in the next five seconds, I'm breaking it down, okay?' She sized up the wooden door, and its rusted metal hinges, before reconsidering the logistics of that. 'Or, actually, I'll go get May and she can break it down. But just please, open the door.'

There was a pause, during which Skye could feel her heartbeat pulse frantically in her temples, before she heard the click of the lock and the bathroom door swung open. She pushed it further and felt about the wall for the light switch before flicking it on; Jemma, crouching on the tiled floor in front of her, winced in the harsh light.

'I'm fine, Skye,' she said wearily, waving a shaking hand at her. 'I just...'

She sighed, and wiped her eyes blearily, before reaching over to flush the toilet with a dismissive shake of her head in Skye's direction.

Her panic slowly subsiding, but still feeling her body vibrating dangerously with adrenaline, Skye stepped around her friend's feet to fill a cup of water at the sink. By the time she turned back, Jemma had pushed herself up into a sitting position against the wall and was hugging her knees to her chest.

Skye sank down in front of her and handed her the cup. Jemma accepted it with a weak smile and drank the water in small sips, before letting her knees slide down with a sigh until she was sitting crosslegged with the cup in her hand. Skye waited for a minute before gently prodding her leg to prompt her.

'You were just what, Jemma?'

Jemma rolled her head back until it was resting against the tiles on the wall and closed her eyes.

'Nightmares,' she murmured.

_Oh_.

Skye sat back on her ankles opposite her friend and watched her anxiously. Despite having spent the whole of the previous day outside, she was still struck by how pale Jemma was, her cheeks almost ashen under the flickering bulb of the bathroom, and there was a thin sheen of sweat on her forehead that glistened whenever she moved. Despite the sweltering humidity of the night, she was shivering too, her teeth chattering even as she tried to hide it. Instinctively, Skye reached out to rub her shoulder comfortingly. Much to her surprise, her skin was cold to touch too.

'What kind of nightmares?' she asked in a whisper after another minute.

Jemma looked up at her and Skye felt a sharp shock run through her body when she saw the tired, haunted look in her eyes, a look that seemed so horribly _wrong_ on the biochemist's face, a face Skye was used to associating with excitement and light and unending kindness.

For some reason, she found herself remembering what May had told her on the beach that morning about scars. Jemma didn't have any scars on her body; Skye knew that thanks to the incredibly thorough medical tests her friend had gone through over the past couple of days. But how could she even begin to count the number of scars Jemma must have written on her heart?

May hadn't told her anything about what to do when the scars you have on the inside became scars that other people could see too.

'There are...various...scenarios,' Jemma said, her voice wavering, 'that play out. Most are, um...pod related. And then what came after.'

Skye nodded, trying to reassure her that she understood. She couldn't though, not really, because although she had made guesses about what had gone down at the bottom of the ocean between Fitz and Jemma, neither of them had ever been explicit with her about the details. But from what she could imagine, and her own memories of the days that followed, the experience would certainly have been the stuff of nightmares.

And, evidently, it still was.

'Is that what you were dreaming about tonight?' Skye asked quietly. 'The...the pod?'

Jemma shook her head. 'No. No, not tonight. It was...' She sighed and her shoulders sagged. 'It's kind of hard to explain.'

Skye shrugged, and rearranged her legs so she was sitting with her back to the shower screen, mirroring Jemma's position. 'Well, we've got the time.'

'Skye, it's one o'clock in the morning.'

'Yeah, exactly. I mean, what else would I be doing at this time of night?'

Jemma shot her a wry look. 'Sleeping.'

'I can sleep whenever I want to.' Skye gave an exaggerated eye roll. 'I'm on _holiday_.'

This at least managed to elicit a small smile from Jemma, who still looked like she was trying not to cry. Once again, Skye found herself reminded of May's words: _some scars need a little bit of help fading_.

'You should tell me about it,' she suggested, before adding in a softer tone, 'please?'

Jemma was staring intently at her lap, the smile that had been there having dimmed just seconds after it had appeared, and Skye felt her heart sink. But then Jemma took a deep breath and began to talk.

'I was dreaming about the rock,' she said, her features creasing up into a deliberate frown. 'And about how...how it felt being inside of it.'

Skye sat up straighter.

None of them had pressed Jemma for details about being inside the Kree rock yet, despite how curious they all were. It still felt like too much like a fresh horror to talk about out loud, like talking about it would rip off a barely formed scab to reopen the wound underneath. Jemma hadn't volunteered anything either, until now. Skye waited, holding her breath.

'I was dreaming that I was back inside and I can't see...or, rather I _can_ see. My eyes are open and I can see my hand if I bring it up to my face but other than that I can't...' Jemma gave a short, snuffling laugh. 'But that's silly, isn't it, I mean, it's a _rock_ , there isn't anything _to_ see. And I can't feel anything either, my feet aren't touching anything and there's nothing if I reach above my head. It's like treading water but it's so much harder, it's... _heavy_. Everything feels so heavy and I can't hold myself up anymore.'

She stopped abruptly to sniff, quickly wiping her fingetips under her eyes to brush away the tears, and Skye felt her own heart grow heavy and the back of her throat prickle hotly. She thought that that might have been their conversation over, but then Jemma spoke up again.

'I don't remember being afraid while I was in there,' she said, her voice sounding hollow. 'I don't remember feeling _anything_ , actually. Wait, no, no, that's not what I mean.' She sighed and bit her lip hard before continuing. 'I-I think that while I was inside my cognitive functions were...slowed. So, I was aware that I should be afraid but my body couldn't respond to that physically for me. But, now that I'm out, it can, so when I dream about being back inside it's like a delayed reaction and I get...'

Jemma's face creased up again and she gestured to her head. 'I get very confused. It's very disorientating and it makes me feel ill. It hurts, too,' she whispered as if as an afterthought. 'It hurts inside my head.'

As Skye watched, Jemma's fingers began to pinch the skin on the inside of her elbow.

'While I was in there,' Jemma continued, her voice shaking, 'it was, um, very hard to tell what was real and what wasn't. I could hear things but I could never tell whether they were real, and I could never feel anything solid. It was all very disconnecting and sometimes...sometimes, I'm still struggling to tell what's real. That's why I keep touching things. I-I need to know that it's still there.'

It was quite possibly the longest Jemma had spoken since she'd come out of the rock, and Skye could tell by the way she slumped back that talking for so long, and the topic she'd been talking about, had exhausted her.

A fragile silence hung in the tiny bathroom as the two women sat staring at each other's knees, as Skye tried to think of something she could say. But, what _was_ there to say, when someone had just said something that made them as vulnerable to you as what Jemma had just said?

S _ome scars need a little bit of help fading_.

'Hey,' she said, suddenly. 'Can I show you something?'

Jemma looked up at her and blinked, but Skye could see the innate curiousity the biochemist had always shown her begin to shine through her drying tears. 'Show me what?'

'Something May taught me, a long time ago.' Skye crawled across the bathroom floor until she was sitting shoulder to shoulder with her. 'After Quinn shot me, I had nightmares too. Pretty bad ones,' she said, looking up to meet Jemma's eyes and feeling a sharp twinge in her chest at the concern on her face.

'Oh, Skye, you should have told me...'

'It's okay,' she said quickly. 'Seriously. But May, she showed me a way that helps them. It's like a trick, really, to make them stop, or at least to help you take control of them. Your dreams are all happening inside _your_ head, Jemma, and you can change them. It's psychology, right? Next time you have that dream, change it. Change it so that I'm there, or Fitz, or May, or whoever, and we bust you out. Because we did, remember?' She nudged Jemma's shoulder with her own. 'That was definitely real.'

A faint smile began to play on Jemma's lips and she looked up apprehensively. 'Do you really think that will work?'

'Worked for me,' Skye said quietly. Then, seeing the anxiety still written on her friend's face, she added: 'but, just in case...'

Kneeling up, she wrapped her arms tightly around Jemma's shoulders, turning her so that she was tucked inside her chest in a gentle hug. Jemma froze uncertainly for a split second, her body tensing at the sudden contact, before easing into the hug and letting her face fall forward into Skye's shoulder.

Skye breathed in as she did so, letting the familiar lavender scent of Jemma's skin fill her nose and gave her a soft squeeze in return.

'Just so you know,' she mumbled into her friend's shoulder. 'This right now is very, very real too.'

She could Jemma's smile like a rubber stamp on her neck.

'Thank you, Skye.'

 

 

It was the sun that woke her the next morning, streaming light onto her face from the curtains they had forgotten to close the night before.

Jemma cracked her eyes open, her body still in that sluggish stage between being asleep and being awake, and felt an unusual sense of calm wash over her that she couldn't quite identify. And then, she realised: she'd woken naturally with the sun rather than been woken by her nightmares, for the first time in longer than she cared to remember.

She wondered whether it had anything to do with what Skye had told her last night, or maybe if it was more to do with the fact that the younger girl had fallen asleep at her back, her face pressed hard into the space between Jemma's shoulderblades.

Jemma found herself smiling as she buried her own head back into her pillow to go back to sleep.

By the time she and Skye eventually got up, they had both missed May's five am work out and when they tumbled out of the door to their cabin, they found the older woman waiting for them outside with a raised eyebrow and two paper cups filled with steaming hot coffee.

'Let's go,' she said, handing them the cups and nodding towards the SUV. As she turned to pull herself into the driver's seat, Jemma could have sworn she'd seen May smile too.

They drove to the minimart they had stopped at the day before: a small shack like building at the side of the road, that miraculously seemed to be the only building within a fifty mile radius that had air conditioning. Once inside, May and Skye stepped back to let Jemma scour the shelves for an appropriate picnic lunch.

Admittedly, her options were fairly limited, but Jemma prided herself on making the best of a poor situation. After a few minutes careful searching, she had managed to put together a suitable selection of foodstuff for the three of them, covering all major food groups. As she laid her choices out on the front counter, she couldn't help feeling a smug twinge of pleasure.

Once they were back in the car, May continued driving but rolled the windows down as she did so that the car was filled with the pine-scented breeze from outside, rather than the chill of the AC. Jemma leant her head against the window frame and closed her eyes, allowing the wind to whip her hair against her cheeks and opened her mouth to breath it in.

_Real. All of this is real_.

The thought was like a lighthouse, shining through the mist to lead her back home.

May drove them for another couple of hours until they reached a dusty sideroad and turned onto it, taking them down a path through the trees to a clearing filled with wildflowers and a babbling creek threading its way through the tall grasses.

'Good picnic spot?' May asked as they got out of the car.

'Wonderful,' Jemma murmured, letting her eyes trail over the field around her. 'Just wonderful.'

Skye grabbed a blanket from the back of the SUV and tossed it over a patch of grass before throwing herself onto it, staring up at the clouds.

'Hey, that one looks kind of like an ice cream cone,' she said, pointing to one. Both Jemma and May turned their faces skyward to squint at the cloud.

'So it does,' May acknowledged, then pointed to another. 'And that one looks like a sailing boat.'

'And,' Jemma added. ' _That_ one is a penguin.'

'A penguin, Jemma, really? I'd have said a shark...'

'No, no. See the way the lower tendrils form feet? And that hook at the top is a beak, not fins.'

'Hmm.' Skye peered over the top of her sunglances and cocked her head. 'Well, I'll be damned. That's a penguin.'

May rolled her eyes and sat down next to her, sliding off her jacket. Jemma turned away from them, staring at the flowers around her to hide her grin. If she let her fingers drop down, they trailed against the tall grasses and she could feel them prickle her skin.

'Hey, Jemma, do you want to sit down?' Skye called.

She shook her head, her eyes fixed on a gap between the trees at the edge of the clearing. 'No, I...I think I'm going to walk for a bit.'

She turned back just in time to see May and Skye exchange a glance and May stood up again.

'I'll come with you.'

'You don't have to,' Jemma protested.

'I want to.'

Looking into the older woman's determined face, she knew there was little point in arguing so instead she just nodded and stepped back to let May fall into step next to her. They left Skye behind to her clouds and walked, side by side, into the surrounding forest.

It was colder than it had been in the clearing and darker too, the tallness of the trees above them creating a thick enough canopy to not let the sun's light or heat through to the forest floor below. As she walked, Jemma found herself shivering.

'Are you cold?' May asked.

'A little.' Jemma hesitated before deciding to admit: 'I've been feeling things a lot more since...you know. Or, rather, I'm noticing things more than I did before, like whether I'm hot or cold. Probably because I couldn't feel a lot while I was inside. Now that I'm out, everything feels sharper, somehow.'

May nodded carefully, as if she understood, and Jemma felt a sense of immense relief that she had shared that with her. It felt like another part of the weight from the rock had been lifted from her shoulders.

'I'm glad that you told me that,' May said quietly. And then, after a moment: 'and I'm glad that you're alright. I can't remember if I've told you that before.'

There was a warmth blooming in Jemma's chest and she glanced up to May. 'I'm glad too.'

They continued walking, the silence between them a little less prominent. Underneath her feet, Jemma could feel the droppd pine needles clicking as she walked over them. It was a wonderful sound, the kind you could feel in your whole head.

'I'm sorry,' May said suddenly. 'I'm sorry about what happened to you. It shouldn't have happened. I should have been there.'

'You were on holiday,' Jemma said dumbly, because she couldn't think of anything better to say.

May laughed bitterly, but it wasn't really a laugh but more of a sharp exhale through her nose. 'That was a mistake in itself.'

Jemma almost stopped short; instead, she slowed her pace down and May automatically matched her strides to hers. 'What do you mean a mistake? Going with Andrew?'

There was always a reason, Jemma knew, for a relationship to end and until that reason was resolved, the relationship was stuck in a vicious cycle. Maybe May and Andrew still hadn't found their reason. Or, at least, they hadn't resolved it yet.

'In part,' May admitted. 'But it was a mistake to go altogether. I shouldn't have left at all, not when I was needed.'

Jemma looked up sharply, the words hitting a little closer to her heart than she might have liked.

'You can't feel guilty for that,' she said, her tone so fierce that it made May looked up at her.

'It was the wrong thing to do.'

'You can only think that _now_ because you know what happened. _At the time_ , it felt like the right thing.'

'But it shouldn't have.' May shook her head. 'I should have known better.'

This time, Jemma did stop. She had never heard the older agent talk like this before. Everything that she had ever seen May do, she had seen her do decisively and with a confidence that told her May was doing exactly what needed to be done. To see her now doubting herself so heavily was more than a little alarming.

'May,' Jemma said carefully, not quite able to let herself meet her eyes. 'You cannot let yourself feel guilty about this. If you do, then it's just going to get harder and harder to move on from it.'

There was a pause, and when Jemma finally looked directly at May, she found her watching her with a sad smile. 'And how well has that worked out for you?'

Jemma winced; well, she'd walked right into that one, hadn't she?

She shook her head and started walking again. May followed her, her hands clasped behind her back.

'It's a lot easier to be the one giving the advice than it is to follow it youself, isn't it?' May asked quietly.

'I think at this point I've collected so much guilt that if I let it go there wouldn't be anything of me left,' Jemma muttered, feeling her throat tighten.

Beside her, May nodded. 'I understand that.'

The two women continued to walk side by side, each lost in their own memories.

In her mind, Jemma saw the faces of all the people she not been able to help – there was Skye, bleeding out in a basement, Trip in fragments on a cave floor, Bobbi flatlining on her own operating table. And then, there was Fitz.

Fitz, stuck on the other side of a glass door and screaming at her, Fitz lying motionless and pale on a hospital bed, Fitz staring her down and telling her she had abandoned him.

Always, it came back to Fitz.

'We can't let that happen,' she murmured. When May looked up at her with a frown, Jemma took a deep breath. 'We can't let the guilt take us over,' she explained. 'Not when there is so much more for us to be. So much more that we _want_ to be.'

_And now I finally know what I want._

'So... if I try and let go of some of the guilt that I'm feeling...will you try too?'

It was a long shot, she knew that. May was her superior agent, several decades her senior and it was in no way her place to be making these kind of emotional compromises with her. But, then again, Jemma liked to think that May was also a friend.

The older agent regarded her closely for a minute and Jemma could feel her heart practically beating its way out of her ribcage as she waited with bated breath.

Then, finally, May gave her a half-smile. 'If you're going to try, then I suppose that I can as well.'

Because there were always reasons for a relationship to break down, Jemma knew. And her guilt over what had happened to Fitz was one of the reasons for why _their_ relationship had broken, why it had seemingly shattered into too many pieces to be repairable.

And that had been her fault.

But, by letting go of some of that guilt and allowing herself to move past it, Jemma got the feeling that they could be more than repairable. In fact, she even dared to hope that in piecing themselves back together, she and Fitz would be able to create something even more beautiful than what they had had before.

She hoped that that might be able to work for May too.

'Come on,' May said quietly. 'We should be getting back. I think we've left Skye alone with the food for far longer than was sensible...'

Jemma gave a quiet chuckle, and was rewarded with another one of May's rare but beautiful smiles as the older woman nodded her head back in the direction they had come.

Jemma allowed herself one last look at the forest around her, before turning around to follow in May's footsteps.

 

 

In retrospect, May acknowledged that this had probably been a very bad idea.

But after her conversation with Jemma in the woods as they were driving back to the campsite in the twilight, she had been unable to stop herself from announcing 'I need a drink', much to the surprise (and then the delight) to the younger women with her.

They had stopped again at the same minimart as before, and Skye had dashed inside while May and Jemma kept the engine running. When Skye had jumped back into the car a few minutes later, though, May had found to her dismay that while 'a drink' may have meant a few bottles of beer to her, to Skye it had meant some cheap spirits and several cartons of juice, which she fully intended on mixing up for the three of them.

Which was how they had ended up here, perched on the porch of Jemma and Skye's cabin under the early evening stars drinking cocktails made in the blender from the kitchenette.

'What, um,' Jemma asked tentatively, pulling her glass back from her face to peer into it, ' _exactly_ is in this one again, Skye?'

May glanced down at her own drink. Decanted into a rather dusty looking glass they had found in a cupboard, the hazy orange liquid looked even less appealing than it had in Skye's blender.

Of course, the fact that three cocktails had already been mixed in the same blender without it getting rinsed out may have had something to do with that. Even May, who was very skilled at holding her liquor, was beginning to feel the world become warmer and fuzzier on the edges.

'Vodka,' Skye announced, a little louder than necessary. May noticed that her movements were becoming more exaggerated too. 'And grapefruit and orange juice.'

'What are all the little bits at the bottom?'

'Oh, yeah, I forgot to get smooth orange juice. So that's the pulp, I guess.'

'Urgh.' May watched as Jemma pulled a face, her nose scrunching up and her lips pouting together, before lifting the glass to her lips and drinking. 'Hmm. You know, actually, that's not half bad.'

Sceptically, May took a sip too. The drink was almost unbearably sweet, but left the back of her throat burning so much she had to cough into her fist.

'I know, right?' Excitedly, Skye drained the last of her own drink and had to suppress a hiccup. 'I invented it myself.'

'How much vodka is it in?' May aksed, her voice coming out a little husky.

'Oh.' Skye frowned at the empty bottle in her lap. 'Uh, possibly... liiiittle more than we needed.'

May took one last sniff at her glass before setting it down on the porch beside her with a shake of her head. _Give me a beer any day of the week_.

Instead, she sat back, leaning against the cabin door to watch Skye and Jemma giggle into their glasses, their eyes shining and their bodies humming with the kind of glow only an excess of sugar and alcohol could produce. Seeing them like that gave May an even warmer feeling than her drink had.

'Wanna see something?' Skye said suddenly, heaving herself up into a kneeling position with a wicked grin on her face.

Jemma gave a happy keening noise and pushed herself up from her slump so she was propped against the porch. May sat up a little straighter.

Skye pulled the blender towards her, so it was resting between her knees, and grabbed the carton of cranberry juice and the half empty bottle of cheap rum. She added them to the blender then pushed it back a way, setting her hands on either side of it, her palms hovering centimetres from the wood floor.

May watched as Skye exhaled carefully, her brow creasing up in concentration, then, like the smallest shift in the earth's core, she felt the porch move.

Jemma gasped, and Skye's face lit up with delight as the blender in front of her began to quake back and forth, churing the liquid inside of it just like a proper mixer. It was a very different look, May realised, to the horror-stricken face she had seen back in Vault D when she had been trying to stop an earthquake threatening to destroy the base.

Skye brought the blender to a careful stop and looked up at the other two with a wide grin. 'So? Pretty cool, right?'

'Incredible,' May agreed. And she wasn't just talking about the cocktail.

When she looked across at Jemma, however, she saw that the girl had taken on a rather sober look on her face, or at least a look far more sober than might be expected for someone who had just downed a dubious amount of liquor and sugary juice.

'I'm sorry, Skye,' she blurted out suddenly. 'For how I treated you before. And for making you those gauntlets. Powers as wonderful as that...' She shook her head. 'They shouldn't have to be kept contained.'

'Hey.' Skye shuffled forward on her knees, her eyes wide. 'You don't have to apologise for that. You were only trying to help.'

'I was,' Jemma agreed. 'But I was trying to help something I didn't understand and because of that I made a mistake.'

So, May thought with a heart-sinking feeling, here was the first thing Jemma Simmons felt guilty about.

Skye shook her head. 'No, I didn't...I didn't understand it either and there was a point when I...when I really, really wanted it to go away.'

Alerted, May leant forward. 'You wanted to get rid of your powers?'

'Well, yeah. From what I'd seen, all they did was hurt people. Raina, and...and Trip...' She struggled over his name still, her bottom lip trembling. 'I didn't want to hurt any of the rest of you. After Lady Sif was here and everyone found out, I wanted it gone more than anything else. And I would have given almost anything to have had those gauntlets work.'

Jemma leant forward to rub small circles on the back of Skye's hand comfortingly while she sniffed; May waited a few moments before cautiously raising her next question.

'But that was then. What about now?'

'Now...' Skye raised her head to her mentor and hesitated. 'Now, I understand them better, I guess. And I can control them, to a certain extent, and I can do good things with them.' She gave Jemma a wan smile, to which the girl responded with a grateful squeeze to her hand.

'I wouldn't even be here if it hadn't been for your powers, Skye,' she said quietly.

Skye snorted. 'I think you being here had a lot more to do with you and Fitz than it did with me,' she admitted. 'But my powers...they feel like they're a part of me now. So, I don't want to get rid of them anymore. I want to _learn_ about them.'

'And we can help with that,' May told her, to which Skye responded with a wider smile.

Jemma nodded enthusiastically, her face filled with more colour than May had seen for days. 'Of course! Given your potential for liason with other inhumans, there is also the possibility for us to help others like you too, make sure none of them feel the way you did again.'

When she saw Skye's face crease up with a doubt she didn't like, May added dryly: 'not to mention, if your powers let you do things as useful as mix cocktails...'

Skye's eybrows shot up indignantly and she turned her nose up, the discontent falling from her face completely.

'Okay, just for that,' she announced, pouring the drink out of the blender into a glass. ' _You_ are going to have to wait for the next one. Jemma, here, take this.'

She wafted the glass over in her direction, but Jemma only shook her head.

'Oh no, I can't have that.'

'What?' Skye frowned, her head drifting down to her shoulder as she wobbled on the step. 'But you said this was good! You liked this!'

'And it is!' Jemma lifted her own glass and tipped her head to one side with a sly grin. 'But darling, I like my drinks stirred...not shaken.'

May was not sure what it was, whether it was the fact that Jemma had cracked such an unexpected joke, or the way Skye's jaw had dropped and her drink tipped into her lap, or even the fact that her world was still feeling a little hazy and she could still feel the burn of the vodka at the back of her throat.

Perhaps it was a combination of the three.

Whatever it was, though, it made Melinda May tilt her head back and laugh out loud.

 

 

'Skye?'

'Hmm-uh.'

' _Skye_.'

'Umph.'

'Skye, are you awake?'

Jemma watched as her friend rolled over in the bed so she was facing her, one hand thrown dramatically over her eyes. The room around them was covered in shadows, and they danced around the room as the moonlight outside passed through the swaying branches of the trees. In the dead of night, the room felt very big.

It was so peaceful here, Jemma thought, like you were living inside of a single moment in time. It felt like you could pretend the world outside did not exist.

But, at the back of her mind, she knew that it did, and that was exactly why she needed Skye to be awake.

'I am now,' Skye groaned. She rubbed at her temples. 'God, why do I feel so crap?'

'Because you had quite a lot to drink last night and it's been roughly...' Jemma checked her watch. 'Five hours since you stopped drinking. So you are currently balancing precariously between being drunk and being hungover. Most likely.'

'Great. Thanks.'

Skye pulled her hands down over her face and pushed herself onto her back to read the time on her phone, then moaned again.

'Jemma, it's like two in the morning. Why are we awake at two in the morning? We should be _sleeping_ at two in the morning.'

'Oh. Well.' Lying on her side, Jemma fingered the hem of the sheets. 'I really appreciated the conversation we had last night. And, um, I thought we could...talk. Again.'

Skye's eyelids flicked open. 'Talk?'

'Yes. Talk. About... _girl_ things.'

'Girl things,' Skye repeated blankly.

'Yes.' Jemma was grateful for the dark. It saved Skye from seeing how red her cheeks must be. 'About, um, boys, maybe? One...one boy, in particular.'

That caught Skye's attention. She sat bolt upright, her eyes bulging. 'Wait, _Fitz_? You woke me up at two am so we could talk about _Fitz_?'

Jemma groaned. 'Well, when you put it like _that_...'

'No, no! I didn't mean...' Skye lay back down again, turning onto her side so she was facing her. 'I want to talk about him. With you. I want to talk about the two of you...with you. But,' she added hastily, 'just remember, I think of him like a brother so if you were wanting to have one of _those_ kinds of conversations...'

'Oh!' If it were possible, Jemma felt her cheeks burn even more. 'Skye, _no_. Absolutely not.'

'Okay, good. Just so we're on the same page.' Skye paused and looked at her curiously. 'So, what do you want to talk about? I thought you said everything was going okay between you.'

'It was. It _is_. I just...' Jemma sighed. 'I'm just a bit worried, that's all.'

Skye pushed herself up onto one elbow and frowned at her. 'Worried about what?'

Jemma hesitated, feeling a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach and she swallowed back a lump in her throat. For all her eagerness to release the anxiety that had been curling around her since the day they had left, she was struggling to find the words to tell Skye how she was feeling.

She shut her eyes and exhaled slowly.

'I'm afraid that he doesn't know how much I...how much he means to me.'

As soon as she had admitted it, Jemma realised just how real that fear was to her, and she shivered.

'What, seriously?' Though she still had her eyes closed, Jemma could feel Skye's wide eyed stare. Her voice sounded utterly incredulous. 'You don't think he...'

'I never said,' Jemma broke in, feeling her chest tighten unplesantly. 'I never said exactly what I felt, in all the opportunities that I had to do it. I couldn't get the words out right and I still don't know if he understood what I was trying to tell him.'

'Jemma,' Skye said, so deliberately that Jemma opened her eyes again to look at her. 'I think you made it pretty clear what you meant. You organised a dinner date for him from your bedroom. You bought him _Indian food_.'

'But I never _said_!' She could feel the prickle of tears at the back of her eyes at the thought of that, and what it might mean. 'I don't think I ever quite got out what I meant. I can't be sure that he understood.'

The look in Skye's eyes was gentle. 'Okay. But, Jemma...did Fitz ever say it?'

Jemma looked up sharply, her heart skipping a beat. _What?_

'What do you mean?' she stammered.

'Did he ever...you know...say it. Three words. Eight letters.'

Jemma's breath caught in her throat as she imagined hearing the words Skye was thinking of in Fitz's voice. Then, she heard him saying three very different words and the rush of water in her ears.

'Not...not _exactly_. No.'

'But you still understood. You knew what he meant, even if he didn't use those exact words.'

_More than that_.

'Yes,' Jemma whispered. 'I knew.'

Skye smiled sadly at her. 'So what makes you think Fitz would be any different?'

_Maybe there is_.

'It's not...' Jemma shook her head. 'It's not quite the same.'

'Okay.' Skye sighed. 'Listen, from what I know about the two of you, it's that neither of you are that great at the whole words thing. You're so much better at the show part, rather than the tell.' She shrugged, or as best she could while leaning into a pillow. 'You want Fitz to know exactly how you feel? Try showing him, rather than telling.'

_So, please...let me show you_.

As she remembered the words, Jemma found herself muttering them under her breath.

Skye frowned. 'What did you say?'

'Nothing.' Jemma shook her head, and smiled. 'Nothing, Skye. Thank you. That...That's helpful.' She took a deep breath and widened her grin at her friend. 'So...any men _you_ want to talk about?'

Skye moaned and rolled onto her back, clamping her hands over her eyes. 'God, don't talk to me about men.'

'I just did. At length, and in depth.'

'About _Fitz_. He doesn't count.'

Despite herself, Jemma bristled indignantly. 'Are you saying he's not a man?'

'What?' Skye looked at her, then let out a sudden burst of giggles. 'Oh God, Jemma, no, that wasn't what I meant. God, no.' She reached out to poke her in the side. 'But look at _you_ , leaping in to defend his honour...'

Jemma groaned. 'Oh, shut up...'

'...Like his knight in a shining labcoat...'

'Skye!'

But Skye was helpless now, flat out on her back while her shoulders shook with laughter. Jemma rolled her eyes, but she was laughing at this point too, until the tears that were falling down her face were ones of laughter instead.

Suddenly, the bedroom did not feel quite so big anymore.

'But,' Skye said, once she had gained the ability to speak again. 'Seriously, though. I think I'm going to swear off men for a little bit. I mean, my past relationships haven't exactly been...successful. Maybe I just need to take a little time to figure myself out first. Figure out what it is that I want, before I go jumping in head first again.'

Jemma nodded slowly. 'I think that's a very sensible idea, Skye.'

_Because now I know what I want, I'm ready to fall in head first._

'But,' Skye said, stifled with a yawn. 'Right now, what I want is to go to sleep again. So, if you've had enough girl talk...'

'Oh! Yes.' Jemma smiled at her sleepy friend, feeling a warm pulse of affection towards her. 'Thank you, Skye. This has been very helpful, truly.'

'Good.' Skye reached out and patted her hand. 'I'm happy to help. Always.'

With that word, both girls burrowed back down under the sheets and Jemma watched as the shadows on the wall began to dance again.

'Oh, and Jemma?' Skye turned over again. 'The reason I said that Fitz didn't count as a man wasn't because I don't think he's...you know. A man. But because I know he's never really been on the table that way. He's always been yours.'

Jemma scoffed quietly. 'I don't think that's strictly true...'

'Oh, it is. Trust me.' Skye tucked the covers tighter under her chin and yawned again. 'I don't care whether it's as lab partners, or friends, or arch nemesises that make out when they think no one's looking, or something even more than that. But the two of you were made to be together. And I think the universe knew that long before the pair of you two dorks did.'

Jemma lay back, dumbstruck, as Skye curled over onto her side her movements already woozy with sleep.

'Think about it,' she murmured.

Jemma nodded, feeling her heart start to flutter against her chest. 'I will,' she whispered, even though she could already hear Skye's gentle snores and knew the girl was fast asleep.

'I will.'

In the corner of the room, the small bottle of sleeping pills, still with three tablets inside, lay at the bottom of the rubbish bin.

 

 

When Jemma suddenly cried out for May to stop the car ('right  _now_ '), May obeyed at such an alarming speed that, had Skye not been firmly belted up in the front seat, she had a feeling she might have gone straight through the windscreen. Which would have put a rather premature stop to her budding superhero career.

They had left the campsite early in the morning, handing their respective lodge keys back in to the girl in reception. She had been sitting in the exact same position she had been when they had first arrived, the only change being the edition of the fashion magazine she held in her hand. Skye hadn't been able to help feeling mildly impressed – if she ever fancied becoming a S.H.I.E.L.D agent, this woman would definitely pass the stakeout assessment with flying colours.

After handing in their keys, they'd all piled back into the SUV to start heading back to the Playground. As they settled back and fastened their seat belts for the drive, May reminded them what a long way they had to go. Skye didn't mind that. After living in a van for several years, driving long distances had become second nature to her.

What was nice about this trip, though, was letting some one else drive for her. It felt nice, she had mused, leaning her head back against the seat and listening to the quiet hum of the engine. It felt like she was being taken care of.

Of course, as she found herself hurtling forward in her seat as May slammed hard on the breaks four hours into their drive, Skye found herself wishing for the first time that she had been the one behind the wheel instead.

Once the car was safely pulled over to the side of the road, both she and May quickly swivelled around in their seats.

'What?' May demanded, scanning Jemma's body at top speed. Skye could practically see her carrying out a medical inventory. 'What is it, what's wrong?'

Skye looked at her friend too, but her anxiety swiftly depleted as Jemma blinked back at them, wide eyed.

'Oh, nothing's wrong, May,' she reassued her. 'I just want to go into that gift shop over there.'

She pointed in front of the car to a low level building half hidden by the trees still. If Skye squinted, she could just about make out a neon sign announcing the sale of gifts and souvineers (at low, low prices).

'You made me pull over so you could go into a gift shop?' May repeated incredulously.

'Yes.' Jemma straightened her back, and Skye now saw that she was clutching her purse in her lap. The purse was pink, with a silver zipper and a tiny monkey keychain attached. 'I want to buy a present for Fitz.'

Skye sank back in her seat, trying to hold back the urge to laugh, when she saw the disbelief on May's face. Glancing back at Jemma, she also saw the quiet determination written all across her friend's body and remembered the words she had said to her (half drunk and half asleep, so it was a minor miracle she could remember at all) the night before.

'I could actually do with a rest break anyway,' she put in helpfully, and looked across at May. 'And who could say no to a crappy roadside souvineer shop, right May?'

May rolled her eyes, but was already taking the keys out of the ignition. 'Ten minutes,' she warned, as Skye found Jemma's hand and allowed herself to be tugged through the door of the shop. Behind her, she could hear May following them.

Inside, Skye got the distinct impression of a Santa Claus grotto she had visited one year when she had been at St. Agnes: brightly coloured and smelling of cheap plastic, with the shelves and floor stacked high with the kind of gifts you would buy, love for the rest of the drive home and then put in a drawer to forget about. It was a place, Skye thought, that you would have to spend far longer than ten minutes in.

'So, seriously?' she asked, as Jemma began wandering up the rows of brightly packaged, tacky gifts. 'You're going to buy Fitz a present from the gift shop to a reserve we broke into two days ago?'

When Jemma turned back to her with a frown, Skye held up a postcard with the exact same view across the lake that they had had from their beach trip and raised an eyebrow.

'Oh...' Jemma groaned, and reached across to snatch the postcard out of her hand and replaced it. She turned away from Skye back to the shelves, before muttering, 'well, he doesn't have to know _that_ part...'

Skye shook her head and, leaving Jemma to sift through the masses of souvineer gifts in front of her, drifted away to explore the rest of the shop.

There were the usual things you would expect to find inside a gift shop for a national park – alongside the postcards with the lake view, you could also buy tea towels, mugs, pencils and pens, rubbers and even minature teddy bears with a t-shirt, all displaying the same picture as on the postcard. When Skye picked up the bear and squeezed it, it proclaimed in a rather pixilated voice how 'grrrrreat' the park was.

May appeared at her elbow, just as she reared back from the toy in alarm.

'That's terrifying.'

'Just a little bit,' Skye agreed, setting the toy down at arms length and stepping back from it. Behind her, she could practically feel May smirking.

With the older woman now at her side, Skye continued to move through the shop, taking everything in and feeling her body slow in fascination.

It was the kind of shop that she had never really had the cause to come into before, her childhood having been distinctly lacking in cultural field trips. This was a shop for those times, but it was also a place for sticky fingers on hot days and for masses of bodies all crowding in together at once. It was a shop for coversations in loud voices and backpacks barely shouldered on with exhaustion. It was a shop, Skye decided as she turned a star-shaped pencil sharpener over in her hand, for families.

Abruptly, she stopped and turned to May.

'We should buy presents to take back for everyone.'

May titled her head to one side. 'We should?'

'Yeah!' Skye gestured to one aisle over. 'Jemma's taking something back for Fitz, we should get something for the others. So they don't feel left out.'

May gave her a questioning look. 'Skye, you do remember that no matter how much Hunter may act like he's five years old, we do actually work with adults, right?'

'I know, I know. But who knows when the next time they'll get to go on holiday will be? Between merging Gonzales' S.H.I.E.L.D with ours and everything with the inhumans, I have a feeling Coulson's going to be keeping us pretty busy for a while. I just thought that it would be nice to take them a little piece of our trip back.'

When she looked up from her pencil sharpener, Skye saw that May's lips were quirking upwards into a half-smile.

'Okay,' she said. 'I guess the emergency funds can stretch to one small gift for the team.'

'Seriously?' When May gave her a brief nod of the head, Skye clapped her hands together in delight. 'Okay, great. Jemma's doing Fitz, so if you find something for Coulson, I'll handle everyone else.'

She disappeared into the next aisle before May had the chance to change her mind (and, knowing her S.O as she did, Skye knew there was a high chance that she would).

Despite never really having a lot of money, Skye liked to pride herself on being an expert gift giver. It was the ideal test of how well you knew someone, whether you were able to find something for them that you knew they would truly love. And Skye liked to think that she knew her teammates pretty well, especially after all they'd been through together.

Bobbi was easiest. Skye swiped the book on the micro-organic eco-systems of the forest almost as soon as she saw it; she knew that kind of stuff fascinated Bobbi and she would love reading it, as long as Jemma didn't see it first (oh, to have not one but _two_ biochemists for your friends...).

Mack was slightly more difficult to buy for, but when Skye came across a build-your-own forest ranger vehicle kit she felt a smug pang of Jemma Simmons level satisfaction as she remembered Mack's minature model of Lola. She knew the kit was meant for kids, meaning that Mack would probably have it fixed in seconds, but she hoped he would appreciate the gesture.

Hunter took her longest, but in the end she found she had come full circle around the shop displays to find herself back where she had started. With a sigh, Skye picked up the growling teddy bear and pressed its stomach again, before adding it to her armful of gifts as it growled against her chest. If Hunter insisted on acting like a five year old, then why shouldn't they treat him like one?

May sauntered up behind her as Skye was laying her spoils on the front counter for the gift shop employee to run up for her. She added a hat to the pile, a baseball cap that had the park name written across the top with the words 'I had an oak-y time!' stitched underneath, with an applique oak tree through the middle.

Skye stared at the hat. 'Seriously?'

May shrugged. 'He likes hats,' was all she said, taking the bag the cashier held out to her.

'Jemma!' Skye called. 'We're leaving, are you ready?'

Her friend popped her head up from the back of the shop, looking for all the world like a rather startled meerkat. Skye wondered what she had been doing that made her look so flustered.

'Almost!' She gave them a quick smile. 'Maybe you should wait for me in the car?'

Skye frowned, and was about to protest that they would wait for her in the shop, when May surprised her by touching her lightly on the shoulder.

'Alright,' she said breezily. 'Don't be too long, though.'

'I won't!' Jemma reassured them, before turning back to what she was doing. Still slightly bewildered, Skye let May turn her around and lead her out of the shop.

'You want to just leave her?' she demanded, as soon as they were out of earshot. 'What if...'

'It's a gift shop, Skye,' May reminded her with a hard look. 'And besides, Simmons can handle herself. It's about time we all started to remember that, before she starts  _asking_ us to.'

Skye bit her lip but, despite her nagging urge to head back into the gift shop, she knew in her heart of hearts that May was right. In a lot of ways, they'd been handling Jemma like she was made of porcelain for the past few days and, given how well Skye knew with the scientist, she also knew that Jemma was not going to be comfortable allowing them to do that for much longer.

This trip had been the start of the end of that, in a way. It had given Jemma some confidence back that the Kree rock seemed to have sapped out of her, but it had also shown how strong she was, how capable she could be of bouncing back from something as disturbing as what had happened to her.

And it was going to be up to the three of them, Skye realised, to show that to the rest of the team.

She was jolted out of her thoughts by the slam of the car door, as Jemma climbed into the back seat next to her, her own gift bag in her hand and an excited look on her face.

Skye nudged her gently as May drove off, sliding her aviator glasses onto her nose. 'Can I see what you got him?'

Jemma looked sideways at her and hesitated for a moment, before evidently coming to a decision and shyly pulling Fitz's present out of the bag.

'Careful,' she cautioned, as Skye unwrapped the pink tissue paper the gift had been wrapped in.

As the last sheath fell away, she found she was holding in her hand a snowglobe, with a little image of the lake view slid in between the flakes and glitter, that swirled around when Skye shook the globe.

Skye felt an unexpected stab of diappointment.

It was a very pretty trinket – she could not deny that. But it was also very...impersonal, especially compared to her own carefully chosen gifts, and especially for two people who knew each other as intricately as Fitz and Simmons did.

Her confusion must have shown, because when she looked up, Jemma was watching her with a bashful smile.

'Turn it over,' she said quietly. And Skye did.

'They had an engraving machine at the back of the shop – did you notice? You had to put in your money and what you wanted the engraving to say and it just etched it for you, it was really quite wonderful and the physics behind it is... But anyway, I saw it, and then I saw the snowglobe too and I just...I had this idea. It was about what you said to me last night, about showing, rather than telling. And it just reminded me of something I did for Fitz a few weeks ago and it just made me think...what if there was a way to let him know how I feel by  _showing_ him, as well as  _telling_ him?'

Slowly, Skye ran her finger over the bottom of the snowglobe, where, freshly etched and still warm, two words were written where they could never be erased.

_Love, Jemma_ .

 

 

The doors to the garage were already open as May drove the SUV smoothly through them on their return.

The drive back had been wonderfully uneventful and by the fifth hour of driving both Skye and Jemma had fallen asleep, Skye's head on Jemma's shoulder with the other girl's head resting ontop. May had been driving in blissful silence ever since.

They were both awake now, though, the inevitable energy that only came with being close to home having triggered cortisol production in their bodies, and there was an excited hum in the air of the car that let May know that despite having enjoyed their mini break, both girls were glad to be home.

As she pulled into the garage, she caught sight of a slight figure tinkering with tools in the wing mirror and realised that they might not be the only ones glad of that. She wondered what kind of excuse Fitz had found in order to be in the garage at the exact moment they had arrived home, and then wondered whether anyone would ever have had the heart to call him out on it.

'Hey.' He raised a nervous hand in greeting as the three women got out of the car, his eyes anxiously flitting past May and Skye until they settled with a miniscule sigh of relief on the face he had been looking for. 'Are you-?'

He never got the chance to finish, because Jemma had left Skye's side almost as soon as she was out of the car, and had hurried across the garage to fling her arms around his neck, her head buried into his shoulder.

Fitz staggered backwards, caught by surprise by her hug, but then brought his own arms up to hold her by her waist, a dazed and delighted smile spreading across his face.

This time, it was Jemma who pulled back from the hug first, shyly tucking a stray strand of hair back behind her ear as she looked up at him. While she and Skye slowly began removing their bags from the boot of the car, May watched as Jemma handed Fitz the present she had bought him in the gift shop, her hands flurrying anxiously in front of her as she spoke, obviously offering some top speed, utterly unncessary explanation for it. As she spoke, Fitz unwrapped the snow globe carefully, letting the layers of tissue paper drift to the floor as he did so, and May saw the characteristic grin on his face falter as he read the engraving on the bottom, replaced by a look of awed wonder.

Bravely, Jemma reached up on tiptoe to press a kiss to his cheek and the dazzled look on Fitz's face spread to the rest of his body language; his back straightened, he pushed his shoulders forward and the tips of his ears turned bright pink as he looked down at Jemma with a smile that looked for all the world like it had been made just for her.

For all intents and purposes, May decided that it probably had been.

'You alright?' she asked Jemma, when she pottered back to collect her own suitcase from the car, letting its wheels clatter on the floor as she hauled it out of the trunk.

'Oh, yes.'

Jemma's own cheeks were flushed pink and she was barely trying to hold back her smile. Over the top of her head, May could see Fitz give Skye a grateful smile. In return, Skye gave him a secret thumbs up and a wink.

'Just happy to be home,' she added.

May nodded, and, in a movement made in such unison it could have been born from the same mind, the two scientists turned around to head off back into the base together. Jemma was pulling her suitcase behind her, and Fitz walked with one hand clutching his gift and the other hovering protectively at Jemma's back. May could hear the faint sound of their careful chatter begin even before they had left the garage.

'That seemed to go well,' she remarked to Skye.

'Yeah.' Skye was watching her two friends' disappear into the base with a wistful look. 'I'm happy for them. Really.'

May watched Fitz close the door after them. 'Me too.'

She turned back to the car and shut the trunk, pocketing the keys as she did so. Skye shouldered her duffle bag and then juggled with the plastic bags she'd got at the gift shop.

All of a sudden, May was struck by how alike she and this younger woman were. It had happened before, at various points in time when Skye said or did something, or tilted her head and cracked a sarcastic smile in a way that so reminded her of her own self and seeing it happen never failed to catch May unawares.

She could be hard on Skye, she knew that. She knew that she could be hard, and brutally honest and push her to her very limits.

But she also knew that she cared about her deeply, and in a way that had been utterly alien to her until those three kids had walked onto her Bus nearly two years ago. May knew, from the bottom of her heart, that whenever any of them called she would always come running.

'So...' Skye finally managed to rearrange the bags on her arm and handed one over to her. 'That one is yours for Coulson.' She gave May a wiggle of her eyebrow. 'Can I come watch his face light up when you give it to him?'

May took the bag and suppressed a roll of her eye. 'Why don't you stick to handing out your own gifts first?'

'Yeah. Okay. Good point.' Skye ducked her head and turned away towards the door, her dark hair swinging down her back. Halfway there, she hesitated. 'Hey, May?'

May looked up and raised an eyebrow in question.

'I was just wondering...are we back on for training? I know it's been a while and I'm probably pretty out of shape but I really want to. Train with you again, I mean.'

Inside of her, May felt something loosen.

She shrugged. '5am.'

'Great.' Skye's shoulders relaxed and she nodded. 'Thanks, May.'

May watched as she turned away again, something in her posture lighter somehow, as if that single word from the older woman had somehow lifted a weight off her shoulders. But May knew Skye well enough to know that there was something even heavier weighing her down.

She sighed.

'Skye, wait.'

Skye turned back again, a frown written across her face.

'I'm glad that you called me,' May said quietly. 'About Simmons. I'm really glad that you did that. And, if it ever comes down to it, I'd want you to do it again.'

The frown on Skye's face was replaced by hope. 'Really?'

May nodded, and offered her a warm smile. 'Really.'

Skye returned the smile with another little nod and, when she turned back again towards the door, May could have sworn her step was even lighter than before. What was even more surprising though, was how much lighter her own heart felt too.

May watched until Skye disappeared the way Fitz and Jemma had done then glanced down at the bag she still had pressed into her hand.

In the dim light of the Playground, the cap she had bought seemed even more tacky than it had in the shop and when she turned it around, she noticed a grinning smiley face stitched onto the back that she hadn't before.

Melinda May rolled her eyes up to the ceiling and bit down a heavy sigh.

Phil was  _ never _ going to let her live this down.

 


End file.
